Golf : For McCumber, the Grass Seems to Be Greener on East Coast

Samuel Johnson once wrote: “A blade of grass is a blade of grass, whether in one country or another.”

That was Johnson’s observation in the 18th Century, but it would be disputed today by the pros on the PGA Tour.

With the tour swinging through Florida for four weeks, the players who grew up putting on Florida’s Bermuda grass greens apparently have an advantage over their counterparts from California and Texas, who are more accustomed to bent grass surfaces.

That, anyway, is the opinion of Mark McCumber and Paul Azinger, Florida-based pros.

“Bermuda greens are a little harder to read because they aren’t as true as bent grass,” McCumber said. “I love the fact that balls break uphill, break to the West, and break towards ponds and the ocean.

“I also love it that California and Texas players are wondering whether the ball is going to break to the Gulf, or the Atlantic. And, we’re not going to tell them, either.”

It isn’t coincidental then that four of McCumber’s six victories have been scored on Florida courses and Bermuda greens.

“Guys raised on bent grass really struggle on Bermuda,” Azinger said. “Guys who have been raised on Bermuda grass can more easily adjust to bent grass. Fortunately, I was raised on Bermuda.”

Said McCumber: “If you grow up on Bermuda grass, you learn to read the grain. Somehow, you know how much it’s going to move the ball. You put the distance and the grain and slope into the computer and you come out with a read that’s been pretty successful for me.”

There is the possibility, of course, that McCumber and Azinger are playing mind games with the pros from the West.

The famed Ben Hogan, a Texan, didn’t seem to be fazed by any greens when he was winning regularly in the 1940s and ‘50s.

McCumber, who lives in Jacksonville, Fla., and will defend his Players Championship at nearby Ponte Vedra March 16-19, regards the recently concluded West Coast tour as sort of a spring training for him.

“It all starts for me in Florida,” McCumber said. “I feel at home, playing in the wind and on Bermuda.”

For McCumber, the grass is always greener on his side of the tour fence.

However, it should be noted that McCumber failed to make the cut Friday in the Doral Open at Miami.

Greg Twiggs, who won his first PGA Tour event last Sunday, the Shearson Lehman Hutton Open in San Diego, got his introduction to golf as a youngster at the Bel Air Country Club.

Eddie Merrins, the head professional at Bel Air and UCLA’s golf coach, recalled instructing Greg when he was 10 to 12 years old.

“We have a program where the sons and daughters of members are instructed free of charge on Sundays,” Merrins said. “Greg’s parents, Reginald and Lenore, were members of Bel Air.”

Merrins said that Twiggs, as a youngster, used to almost beg some members to let him get involved in their games.

“He was better at that time than most juniors and wanted to play with older players,” Merrins said. “He had the ability even then to hit the ball quite far, and make a lot of birdies. But he was an incomplete golfer, not polished.

“However, he spent a lot of time at night at the driving range at Rancho Park, hitting hundreds of balls. So he developed a good swing style.”

Twiggs’ parents moved to San Diego when he was 17. He attended San Diego State, where he was a first-team All-American in 1983. He’s also a former Southern California amateur champion.

But his impact on the tour was minimal until he broke through with his victory in San Diego.

After seven tournaments, Mark Calcavecchia and Steve Jones, each with two victories, are the leading money winners.

Calcavecchia has earned $358,952, Jones $347,375.

Donnie Hammond, who is 30th on the money list, has earned $48,000 for two months’ work.

To put that figure in perspective in this era of escalating purses, Arnold Palmer was the leading money winner on the tour in 1958, earning $42,608. It wasn’t until 10 years later that Palmer became the tour’s first millionaire in lifetime earnings.

Curtis Strange matched Palmer in one year, earning $1,147,644 in 1988. Strange is starting slowly this year as he did in 1988. He has earned only $28,295 in official money.

However, he picked up a winner’s check of $92,000 in a tournament last month in Australia. The winner’s share for the Nabisco Championships next October in Hilton Head, S.C. has been boosted from $360,000 to $450,000.

Some players on the tour have said that the total Nabisco purse of $2.5 million puts too much emphasis on one tournament and is out of proportion to the rest of the schedule.

PGA Commissioner Deane Beman said it isn’t unprecedented.

“It’s not as much out of proportion as Westchester was when it went to $250,000 more than 20 years ago,” he said. “At that time a few--very few--tournaments were playing for $100,000, most of them for $75,000.”

Chicken feed. There were 112 players who earned $100,000 at least last year on the tour and they wouldn’t be among the top 50 on the money-winning list.

Golf Digest has been keeping records of holes in one since 1952 and it reports that the odds of an average golfer getting an ace in one round on a 18-hole course are 5,000-1.

For a golfer to get two in the same round is considered almost impossible.

Even so, the magazine reported a record 13 double aces in 1988.

The magazine also reported that Hank Bocchini Sr. of Fresno has aced all nine of the holes on his owner-operated course.

The holes range in distance from 85 to 210 yards and he has been accumulating his aces since 1955.

Golf Notes

Bob Brue, a Senior PGA pro and a noted trick shot specialist, will conduct a free golf clinic at the ninth annual Vintage Chrysler Invitational at Indian Wells. The clinic will be held at The Vintage Club driving range at noon on March 4. . . . Eleven players have been offered exemptions to the Nabisco Dinah Shore tournament March 30-April 2 at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage. Pearl Sinn, the current United States Public Links and amateur champion; France’s Marie-Laure de Taya, Japan’s Nayoko Yoshikawa and Australia’s Corrine Dibnah are among those getting exemptions.

The second annual AI Star/ Centennial Hospital Classic, a 54-hole LPGA tournament, is scheduled April 14-16 at Rancho Park golf course. Nancy Lopez is the defending champion. . . . Herb Graffis, 95, a legendary golf historian, died Feb. 12 at Ft. Meyers Beach, Fla. Graffis was a recent recipient of the PGA’s distinguished service award. . . . California Golf magazine has listed its annual ratings of the top 25 public courses in the state. The top 10: 1. Pebble Beach; 2. Sandpiper in Goleta; 3. Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz; 4. Spyglass Hill in Monterey; 5. PGA West in La Quinta; 6. Half Moon Bay; 7. La Purisima in Lompoc; 8. Industry Hills Eisenhower course; 9. Poppy Hills in Pebble Beach; 10. Torrey Pines South in La Jolla.

Among the many golf publications is the lighthearted Golf Nut News with the slogan, “The Voice of the Lunatic Fringe of Golf.” The late David Mikkelson of Seattle, who died at 71, has been honored as Golf Nut of the Year. Among his accomplishments: He averaged 449 rounds a year for six consecutive years, often played 54 holes a day and played 56 rounds in a single month. He also drove 60 miles round trip every day to play a course in Snoqualmie, Wash. . . . A new publication, “L.A. Golf--a Guide to the Public Courses of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties,” is available at pro shops and golf and book stores in Southern California.